MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine boy shoots three classmates.

The rampage at the Islas Malvinas Middle School No. 2 in the south-eastern corner of Buenos Aires province touched off an intense nationwide debate about spiralling school violence in Argentina.

The teenager ? who authorities identified as Rafael S. and nicknamed "Junior" by his friends ? behaved normally yesterday as a school assembly observed the hoisting of the flag as they do every morning. He then walked into a room with other classmates before the teacher arrived, drew the gun and began firing indiscriminately. He first fired at the walls of the classroom. Then as his classmates told him to put the gun down, he shot at the students. Some of the witnesses said he carefully picked his victims, something authorities could not confirm. Some students said it sounded like firecrackers going off, until they saw bloodied mates screaming as they fled the room.

"Everyone hid underneath the desks and then he began firing," one boy told a television station.

The shooting spree lasted for around seven or eight minutes. When it stopped, two girls and a boy ranging from 14 to 16 were dead, police said. Five more students were wounded; one was last night fighting for his life in a hospital in neighbouring Viedma.

Police said they arrested Rafael without resistance soon afterwards in the schoolyard. He was in a state of shock, witnesses said, and could not speak a word.

According to Argentina's criminal legislation, Rafael S. is unfit to stand trial for murder because he is not 16 years old yet. He will most likely be placed under custody in an institute for minors.

The teenager was described by most of the people who know him as "a quiet boy" who never posed any disciplinary problems, although "introvert and timid." His mates also said he usually dressed in black and that he listened to Marilyn Manson records.

Investigators confiscated his school desk which, among other inscriptions, read: "the most sensible thing we human beings can do is to commit suicide" and "if anyone finds any meaning to life, please write it here." "He never brought us any problem. He kept a low profile and was very quiet," said the school's kiosk attendant.

The schools PE teacher said that Rafael had a good relationship with his classmates and that he was popular at soccer because he was a good goalkeeper. In fact, Rafael played as goalkeeper of the local "Jorge Newbery" soccer team.

Rafael's father is a coast guard officer. Investigators believe the gun he took to school belonged to his father. The three fatal victims were identified as Sandra Núñez, Evangelina Miranda and Federico Ponce.

Mario Oporto, education minister for the vast Buenos Aires province which includes Carmen de Patagones, deplored the violence. "Three children killed in a school is cause for great sadness," Oporto said. "This is a case of violence exceeding all bounds."

President Néstor Kirchner also commented on the tragedy. "It is horrendous. Very painful, very painful," said the President. The national government ordered two days of mourning for the victims of the shooting.

Last night, some 500 people in the town of 14,000 gathered to bid farewell to the young victims.

Reports of classroom violence have raised public concern recently before the shooting, which was the worst on record.

In July, a 12-year-old schoolgirl was hospitalized after she was badly beaten, allegedly by classmates, at a school in La Plata southeast of Buenos Aires. A 17-year-old student in the central province of Córdoba was found stabbed, last November. In October 2003, a teacher in Mendoza, western Argentina, had her skull fractured by a tossed paving stone.

But yesterday's shooting was very unusual for Argentina, where guns are harder to obtain than in the United States, which has experienced several school shootings in recent years. One of the worst cases was the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, in which two student gunmen killed 12 students and a teacher before killing themselves.

Argentina's most recent school shooting was August 4.2000, when authorities said a student shot and killed a 16-year-old classmate and wounded another teenager in the Greater Buenos Aires area. The suspect, who said he was fed up with insults and nicknames, was acquitted. His classmates called him "Pantriste" after a lanky, sad-looking cartoon character.

Before midday yesterday, firefighters rolled three bodies out of the school in black plastic body bags as the city remained in shock. A crowd milled outside amid the ambulances and police cars standing by.

Authorities said they had whisked the teenage suspect to a juvenile court centre in Bahía Blanca, a nearby city in southern Buenos Aires province. Officials said he would undergo psychiatric tests as part of the first stages of the investigation.